Times are tough for omnivores. By now, you’ve heard all the reasons to eat less meat: your health, the planet, the animals. All that might be true, but for many meat-eaters, vegetables aren’t always delicious on their own. Pitiful are the collards without the ham hock, the peppers without the sausage, the snap peas without the shrimp.

In my family’s universe, meat is the sun around which vegetables, beans, and grains revolve. Take it away, and dinner descends into chaos. As the cook of the family, I’m constantly trying to find ways to reduce our meat consumption. But the mouths I feed, mine included, still crave the taste of meat.

Atlantic